EVENING CLASSES

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 12 February 1927, Page 9

EVENING CLASSES

FROM MESSENGER TO CHIEF ENGINEER

SIR WILLIAM NOBLES CAREER

[Sir William Noble, ihe writer of the. following article, which appeared on (he from page of John O' London, on July 17, 1926. was in Rawera last

same period by certificates from the Society of Arts for proficiency in English and Arithmetic. In Shorthand I got first prize, and a second prize in English, both in classes of about a hundred students. It happened that I Avas offered a job as a reporter, but my superintendent in the Telegraph Department of the. Post Office dissuaded me from accepting the position. Deciding, then, to remain in the Government service, I turned my attention to the study of subjects likely to be of mere immediate use to me in my chosen career. There is an inference here, I suggest, for the. young man and the young woman of to-day. HaA'ing chosen a career, give up as much of your time as von can to equipping yourself for it. I became, a student of Gordon’s College. a pioneer evening institution for voting men. 1 attended its classes until I was thirty-two. perfecting my knowledge of electricity, magnetism, telegraphy, mathematics, and telephony. the last three of which subjects I in turn taught others over a period of six A'enrs.

week, when (lie llritish General Electric Company entertained representative citizens at a dinner, to mark the completion of the installation of the automatic telephone system.]

TUST how much a man owes to the ’ education ho received in bis early duA r s it is invariably hard to say. What, I think, is much less a matter of c.onieeturo is that education does not matter quite so much ns -some people seem to think it docs. Like other contributors to this interesting series of articles, L believe that character matters very much more. The boy tvho starts his career as an errand-boy or an otuCGbov at. sav, thirteen has eA*cry bit as "big a chance, if not a bigger, of makinc- his wav in the world as the boy who is kept at school until he is sixteen or seventeen, or older. He i« brought into touch Avith the realities of life and learns to face them for himself from the beginning. For mvsolf, I was obliged to leave school at thirteen, at which age I became a telegraph messenger. But 1 was stin very much m Jove with learning, and • arranged with my former schoolmaster that when I was free in the evenings I should attend his night school, and, further, that when I Avas free during the day, 1 should attend classes in the ordinary way. lhis continued until I had worked thiough the curriculum, at which stage I enrolled for classes at the Mechanics’ Institute, a forerunner of the technical colleges of the present day. M>- early ambition —-and I confess to being always ambitious; one cannot get far unless one is! —was to be a journalist. With this in view I gave up all my leisure to the study of shorthand and English grammar and literature. Actually, 1 started to learn shorthand in August and by the following April had obtained a Society of Arts certificate for a speed of one hundred and fifty words a minute. Shorthand, T sometimes hear it said, is not so A r alnable an accomplishment now as it was at one time. Whether this is so or not. T do not know, but it was certainlv of very great use to me, as, indeed, it is stiil. I think, too, that there is a good deal to bo said for the mental training afforded by learning and practising it. Such diligence as I showed in my spare-time studios was rewarded at this

j; have said that at the outset of my career I determined to study the subjects most likely to be of use to ane in pursuing it. In. spite of this, I worked for ten very discouraging years without seeing any real prospect of what is usually termed “ getting on.” But I never slackened ray efforts; on the, contrary, I obstinately resoWcd that I Avould go on studying hard until an opportunity of advancement came, CA’on if I had to Avait twenty years. Of course, when the opportunity did at last come, I was ready to meet it and to take full adA'antage of -it. And from that moment I. neA'er looked back, although if I had been told then that one day I should be responsible for a staff of over twenty-five thousand telephone ami telegraph engineers, and workmen, I should have been sceptical, in spite of my ambitious and ray selfcon fide nee. f have no doubt in my OAvn mind that Avlint success I may have achieved has been due in au unusually large measure to iiiy persistence as « spare-time student.' For many years 7, set my alarum for 5 a.in. and* Avont to bed at 11 p.m. Games had little part in my doA’olopment after I left school. My pleasures Avero all centred in reading and in study. Two books that stand out in my memory ns haA r ing done something to" turn my thoughts to self-betterment and to stimulate my imagination generally were Smiles’s “Self-Hein” and “From Log Cabin to White House.” Both are regarded with something like

cynicism to-day. Bui it cannot bo gainsaid that to many a young man of my generation they wore a -source of real inspiration. And the. cynics, anyhow. are nearly always the unsuccessful! As for amusements generally, I did not enter a theatre until I was well over twenty, and it was still later that I saw the inside of a music-hall for the first time. I was over thirty when I saw my first football match, and I have yet to witness my first.game of Rugby. This is not to say that Ido not countenance pastimes other than those comprising study or reading. It is probable that I erred on the -wrong side, .fast as ranch as the man -who overindulges his liking for sport and games. I.ike the two books mentioned above, maxims are considered old-fashioned. Bui that, for me, does not diminish their efficacy. .1 am C|uite sure, that the man who makes '‘Do it- now” a rule of life will go farther than the man who .jeers at him for doing it. “Bo it now” has long been a principle of mine. “Genius is hard work” aud “No duty set is too trifling to be well done” are two other maxims that have played their part in my life; to me they have mattered very definitely.

Nor did I neglect my study of the most absorbing of all interests —human nature. It became a habit of mine to jot down in a notebook observations on different officials with whom I came in contact. Later on these records assumed a significance that I never consciously auticipated. ns they were useful for reference when 1 became head of my department. Looking over them, after some years, I found that there was little to' be altered; human nature docs not change, and traits of character that I had noted earlier were profitably recalled when, having risen in the service, I was required to make different appointments. I may have carried my study of human nature to something like extremes, but no young man or young woman, anxious to make headwav in his or her career, should be blind to the necessity of studying very carefully those with whom he or she works.

Such a study is not to l>e undertaken in a harshly critical spirit. Its result frequently is to engender in one a consideration and sympathy for others that may go far towards enhancing one’s own personality. Consideration for others is a tremendous factor in one ’s working life. Like the late Elbert Hubbard. T believe that, an ounce of loyally is worth a pound of cleverness.